Hoodie v. Hoodie 2012

Hutaree Verdict Leaves Egg On Attorney General Eric Holder's Face

From a detailed accounting by the Columbus Telegram here:

"The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level," [US District Judge Victoria] Roberts said.

Prosecutors said Hutaree members were anti-government rebels who combined training and strategy sessions to prepare for a violent strike against federal law enforcement, triggered first by the slaying of a police officer.

But there never was an attack. Defense lawyers say highly offensive remarks about police and the government were wrongly turned into a high-profile criminal case that drew public praise from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who called Hutaree a "dangerous organization."

Militia leader David Stone's "statements and exercises do not evince a concrete agreement to forcibly resist the authority of the United States government," Roberts said Tuesday. "His diatribes evince nothing more than his own hatred for _ perhaps even desire to fight or kill _ law enforcement; this is not the same as seditious conspiracy."

You are now free to hate about the country.

Hutaree Militia Acquitted On Second Anniversary of Arrests for Sedition

Government prosecutors and the FBI prove their incompetence yet once again.

The Detroit News has the complete story here, and begins with this:

A federal judge acquitted seven members of the Hutaree militia Tuesday of the most serious charges following six weeks of testimony in a high-profile terror case.

On the second anniversary of the Hutaree arrests, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts granted a defense motion Tuesday to acquit the militia members on seven charges, including seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. The most serious charge could have resulted in life prison sentences.

She ordered the trial to continue against Hutaree leader David Stone Sr. and his son, Joshua Stone, on weapons-related charges.

The Incredibly Fading TARP

USA Today Away recounts here how the political toxicity of TARP has been diluted since 2010, primarily because of the passage of time, its putative success, and the inevitability of one Mitt Romney, who supported TARP and still does, one issue on which Mitt Romney has not flip-flopped:

Mark Calabria, director of financial regulation studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank, said some conservatives still oppose the bailout, but the growing assumption he will be the Republican presidential nominee has caused them to "pull their punches."

"Republicans are divided on it: (Some say) it was distasteful but had to be done; others say it was an abomination," he said.

Calabria said it was unlikely that TARP and the bank bailouts would become a general election issue if Romney is the nominee because his and Obama's positions "aren't all that different."

Two years ago, some Republicans found their vote for TARP was enough to draw a populist conservative opponent into the GOP primary.


Never mind bank failures have cost the FDIC nearly $90 billion and GSE failures have cost the taxpayers $150 billion and climbing.

More to the point, legitimizing bailouts legitimizes moral hazard, making the prospect of gaming the system, with even larger bailouts next time, a certainty.

This is not capitalism.

Romney for president!

US District Judge Says Hutaree Militia Entitled To Oppose Government With Words

AP Obama reports, here, via mlive.com:

"They're entitled to oppose the government with their words," Roberts said. "It's still unclear to me after hearing all these arguments how that speech crossed the line into becoming illegal, and how I get there without building inferences upon inferences."

The case against the Hutaree, who seem to have been arrested to quell opposition to the passage of ObamaCare, appears to be unconvincing to the judge and may unravel shortly just as the Supremes hear arguments against the healthcare law.

May the case and the law die with a whimper.

Individual Mandate is Effective and Efficient? So is a Bullet, or Zyklon B.

Jonathan Gruber defends his ObamaCare monster child, here, and he's written a 160 pp. comic book to explain it to the ignorant masses. Just $14 at fine book shops everywhere.

The Daily Beast supplies the word "efficient," which shows the attraction government force has for the left.

Obama's Hot Mike Proves He Has Treasonous Plans For US Missile Defenses The Voters Would Reject

The congressman, of course, doesn't quite put it in those terms, here, but it's clear the president has hatched a plot which the Russian president supports:

[T]he defense authorization bill signed into law by the president contains a provision that limits the president’s ability to share classified data with Russia.

“Congress took this step because it was clear based on official testimony and administration comments in the press that classified information about U.S. missile defenses, including hit-to-kill technology and velocity at burnout information, may be on the table as negotiating leverage for your reset with Russia,” Turner said, noting that the president said he may treat the limit as nonbinding when he signed the defense bill into law.

The comments in Seoul, in addition to the signing statement, “suggests that you and your administration have plans for U.S. missile defenses that you believe will not stand up to electoral scrutiny,” [Rep. Mike] Turner [R., OH] said.

The Weekly Standard has the hot mike transcript, here:

President Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space."

President Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…"

President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you."

What more evidence do we need that this traitor needs to be removed from office?

Al Hunt Blames Christian Anti-Mormon Bigotry For Romney's Troubles

Al Hunt for Bloomberg blames evangelical Christians for Romney's problems in this article:

Mitt Romney has a persisting Mormon problem. Less certain is whether this is limited to the Republican primaries or it’s a general-election worry, too.

“This nomination would be in the bag if it weren’t for the Mormon factor,” says John Geer, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University who works on the intersection of religion and politics.

The exit polls from a plethora of primaries confirm that. Romney, a deeply devout leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gets clobbered among white evangelicals and those who believe the religious views of a would-be president matter a great deal. This has caused him to lose a few primaries and denied him decisive wins in others.

The trouble with this argument is that it is wrong and ignores the fact that Mormonism is a bigger impediment in a candidate for Democrats than it is for Republicans, who might well realize this and instead want someone without this baggage who can also garner Democrat votes in the general election.

Last June's Gallup poll is a case in point: 27 percent of Democrats are unwilling to vote for a Mormon, compared with 18 or 19 percent for Republicans and Independents.

But there is another reason for Romney's woes, a candidate with far superior organization and much more money than any of the rest: proportional primaries.

Joseph Curl discusses the advent of proportional primaries in the Republican Party here, in the wake of the 2008 candidacy of John McCain:

[T]his is ... the scenario Republicans set up in 2010. Party leaders felt the process was too front-loaded, tilted too far to establishment leaders. So, to extend and open up the nomination, the leaders moved from mostly winner-take-all primaries and caucuses to proportionate distribution of delegates based on popular vote.

“There were a lot of people on the [Republican National Committee] and other places who were not very happy after ‘08,” David Norcross, chairman of the party’s Rules Committee when the changes were made, told the Daily Beast. “We didn’t think it was right that four or five states got to pick the nominee. It was slam, bam, thank you, done - and I think we were not helped by that. In fact, some of us think [Sen. John] McCain was not helped by that because he was not forced to sharpen his candidate skills. It was over and he went on to wait for the Democrats to produce a candidate. Just sitting around waiting.”

The new system established hefty penalties for any state that sought to move up on the calendar, in essence halving the number of delegates a state could award if it were so brash. It didn’t work; Florida moved its primary up anyway, with disastrous results.

But the new system also suggested the stakes be ramped up after April 1. The idea was for states holding primaries and caucuses after that date to be winner-take-all. But many of the late-date states wanted the nomination battle to still be alive when their date came up, so they stuck with the proportional setup.

That is why, almost into April and just halfway through the primary calendar, front-runner Mitt Romney has less than half the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination. And while everyone’s math differs, it looks as if he has to win about half of all delegates from now until the final primary in Utah on June 26.

With 1099 delegates still to be apportioned as of today in the rest of the primary contests, Romney needs 576 more to capture the nomination. Santorum needs 871.

But under a winner-take-all scenario, Romney would possess 625 delegates already and could theoretically clinch the nomination by winning the next thirteen states through May 15th. It would take Santorum through May 29, winning all sixteen of the next contests to add to his would-be current total of  461 under winner-take-all, including such places as Maryland, DC, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Oregon and Texas. A dubious proposition.

Presumably the dynamic of the race under those conditions would look far worse for Santorum because of Romney's natural advantages in boots on the ground and money. What is keeping Santorum viable today, however, has little to do with what Christians believe about Mormonism. What keeps Santorum alive is proportional voting.

Santorum needs to capture 79 percent of the still available delegates to win it, which is crazy. And if he thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hell of carving out a role in any future administration after the things he's said this season, he's even crazier than I think.

Let's hope he puts us out of our misery and gets out before Pennsylvania humiliates him on April 24th.

Why Can't Rick Santorum Imagine A Republican Worse Than Mitt Romney?

"Pick any other Republican in the country. He is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama."

Santorum made the statement in Racine, Wisconsin, quoted here.

How about John McCain, for example? He actually lost against Barack Obama, as I recall. Wouldn't he be a worse candidate today than Romney?

Or how about Mark Foley?

Or Duke Cunningham?

There must be scads of Republicans who would be worse candidates than Mitt Romney, but Rick Santorum can't seem to muster the proper perspective to imagine who they might be or where Mitt Romney fits in the scheme of things Republican.

Rick Santorum has proven before that he exercises bad judgment from time to time, say by encouraging Democrats to interfere in Republican primaries, or by writing-off mainline Protestants, not just from electoral politics but from Christianity itself. This is yet one more example of an ill-considered opinion best left unexpressed.

And those sorts of things make him an incendiary candidate who cannot win against Barack Obama.

I'd say that makes him a worse candidate than Mitt Romney.

CBS News Reports Debt Increased More Under Obama Than Under Bush

Don't forget folks, the conservative press is the enemy.

Mark Knoller has the story here:

"The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.

The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush's last day in office, which coincided with President Obama's first day.

The National Debt also now exceeds 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services."

"The Weakest Republican Field In History, And They Kicked My Butt"

So says Gov. Rick Perry, here.

"You're Umbday in Any Language"

See Moe say it here, in "Tassels in the Air" (1938).

George Will Notices Amicus Brief That ObamaCare Violates Centuries Of Contract Law

In his Washington Post column, here:

The individual mandate is incompatible with centuries of contract law. This is so because a compulsory contract is an oxymoron.

The brief, the primary authors of which are ... Elizabeth Price Foley and Steve Simpson, says that Obamacare is the first time Congress has used its power to regulate commerce to produce a law “from which there is no escape.” And “coercing commercial transactions” — compelling individuals to sign contracts with insurance companies — “is antithetical to the foundational principle of mutual assent that permeated the common law of contracts at the time of the founding and continues to do so today.” ...

Throughout the life of this nation it has been understood that for a contract to be valid, the parties to it must mutually assent to its terms — without duress. ... Under Obamacare, the government will compel individuals to enter into contractual relations with insurance companies under threat of penalty.


Like governments, contracts derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." And when the consent is missing, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."

And we will, one way or another.

Santorum The Weasel On Display Again

When confronted recently about things he wrote in his book about radical feminists, Sen. Santorum blamed them on his wife, even though nowhere in the book does she get credit as a co-author.

Now he's protesting, as reported here, that his words suggesting we will end up voting for the real deal, Obama, instead of a paler version, in Romney, have been misunderstood as self-referential:

Santorum's original comment came Thursday in a San Antonio speech, in which the candidate said Obama and Romney had so few differences that "we may as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk" with Romney.

Santorum argued that when he used the word "we" in his comment, he was referring to the general public. But he said people mistook his remark to mean that he personally would vote for Obama over Romney.

"No, I was saying the people may not vote for someone they don't see as different," Santorum said.

What Republicans should and do find objectionable about this, contrary to Santorum's explanation, is that a high profile Republican such as Santorum seems to be campaigning for the Democrat opposition.

Indeed, he's given evidence that he's more interested in crossover votes from the Democrat Party, e.g. in the Michigan primary, than he is in Republican votes. Moreover his bashing of Protestants unfortunately legitimizes bashing Mormonism, which will come back to haunt, and hurt, Romney in the general election when PACs unleash a torrent of criticism on Romney's strange beliefs.

It's disloyal and dispiriting for Santorum to speak this way in public. Independent voters will lose, not gain, respect for Santorum as a result, not that it matters much. His is a negative campaign anyway, lock, stock and barrel. We all know the many things Santorum is against. The trouble is, we don't know what he's for.

Santorum should withdraw from the presidential contest.

Obama's Lazy Mind At Work

"Danes have punched above their weight in international affairs."

"I've said this before, but I want to repeat: Norway punches above its weight."

"We have no stronger ally than the Netherlands. They consistently punch above their weight."

"Ireland punches above its weight. It's a small country."

"The Philippines is not the largest of countries . . . It punches above its weight."

See the video here.

h/t The Weekly Standard

George Orwell on Adolf Hitler

"[T]he situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. ...

"I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. ...

"Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all 'progressive' thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. ...

"Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarized version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people 'I offer you a good time,' Hitler has said to them 'I offer you struggle, danger and death,' and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet."

-- from George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf, 1940 (reproduced in full here)

Hutaree Defense Maintains FBI Plant Incited Escalation to Bomb-Making

The Detroit Free Press reports here:

The defense argues it was the FBI agent who introduced "violent explosives" to the group in an effort to incite greater criminal activity.

"Your agent moved the ball down the field," [defense attorney] Swor said in court Thursday.

Romney's ObamaCare Op-Ed in USA Today is Intellectually Incoherent

The op-ed may be viewed in it's entirety here.

Two streams of thought collide throughout: federalism vs. strong federal interventionism.

"I favor giving each of the 50 states the resources and the responsibility to craft the health care solutions that suit their citizens best. ... Also, individuals are currently prohibited from purchasing health insurance across states lines, which reduces competition and makes many plans subject to expensive state benefit requirements. The federal government can open up these restricted markets. States could still regulate their insurance industries, but consumers across the U.S. would benefit from lower costs and greater choice."

Federal mandates to the states and federal interference with "expensive state benefit requirements" are not the federalism Romney spends much of the op-ed touting:

"I've opposed a one-size-fits-all health care plan for the entire nation. What we need is a free market, federalist approach to making quality, affordable health insurance available to every American. Each state should be allowed to pursue its own solution in this regard, instead of being dictated to by Washington. ... It is the genius of federalism that it encourages experimentation, with each state pursuing what works best for them. ObamaCare's disregard for this core aspect of U.S. tradition is one of its most egregious failings."

If some states decide that they want to require benefits in insurance plans which are more costly, the federal principle demands that they be allowed to do so.

Likewise with Romney's proposal to have the feds cap "non-economic damages" and encourage "specialized health care courts" in the states. These too are examples of a muscular, activist federal government steering the states in a predetermined direction.

Which is it, governor? Federalism, or federal meddling masquerading as leadership?

Santorum Self-Destructs By Urging Real Liberal Obama Over Also Liberal Romney

Oops!

The reasoning makes sense, and is also correct, but that's not how you win in politics, let alone preserve your position for a future run.

Talk about a tin ear.

The LA Times has the story here:

"If you're going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch-A-Sketch candidate of the future."

I think that spells the end for one Rick Santorum.

Star Witness Against Hutaree Cut Corners in Prior Case

Another case of the feds trying to get by on the cheap by using amateurs, as reported here:

Haug acknowledged he was suspended without pay for five days for signing another agent's name on an evidence package in 1996 in Newark, N.J. He had been with the FBI less than a year. It had nothing to do with the Michigan militia investigation.

"You know chain-of-custody issues can jeopardize a prosecution," said attorney James Thomas, who earlier said it was proof of Haug "cutting corners."

The story also reports that Hutaree member Joshua Clough, who cut a deal which was important for establishing criminal intent by the Hutaree, is not going to testify against the Hutaree in this trial.

Hmm.

Romney Campaign Trots Out Wife To Say Mitt Doesn't Change Positions

Haha.

Video here.

Norwegians the Most Anti-Israeli in Europe

Spaniards are tops for saying Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Spain.

Hungarians are tops for saying Jews have too much power in the business world and in international finance. Hungarians also are tops for saying Jews talk too much about the Holocaust.

Poles are tops for saying the Jews killed Jesus Christ.

The latest survey results may be found here:

Romney Again Defends TARP, Says Bush, Not Obama, Prevented Depression

Romney's complete and utter nonsense from yesterday, quoted here:

"There was a fear that the whole economic system of America would collapse -- that all of our banks, or virtually all, would go out of business."

"In that circumstance, President Bush and Hank Paulson said we've got to do something to show we're not going to let the whole system go out of business. I think they were right. I know some people disagree with me. I think they were right to do that."

"I keep hearing the president say that he's responsible for keeping America from going into a Great Depression."

"No, no, no. That was President George W. Bush and Hank Paulson that stepped in and kept that from happening."

Never mind the stock market nose-dived after TARP was passed, millions more lost their jobs, housing went into the toilet and stayed there, and 2008-2009 were back-to-back years of GDP declines. A small depression, but a depression nonetheless.

And never mind that George W. Bush himself characterized his own actions as abandoning free market principles in order to save the free market system. As senators, both John McCain and Barack Obama voted for the measures Bush signed.

This was liberalism in action, not conservatism. And Romney the corporate raider is just fine with it, as are over 4 million Republican primary voters to date.

But over 6 million Republican primary voters to date disagree, voting for Santorum, Gingrich, and Ron Paul. Still others have voted for candidates not named Romney who have dropped out of the race.

Romney seems bound and determined to subdue the base of the Republican Party, as John McCain before him.

Therefore he will lose to Barack Obama. 

Prosecutorial Misconduct in Hutaree Case May Lead to Mistrial

Prosecutors withheld evidence about the key FBI operative's handling of an informant gone wild and now in the pokey in an unrelated case, as detailed here:

According to defense lawyers, the government’s star witness in the Hutaree case, FBI agent Stephen Haug — who spent months spying on the group while undercover — was the FBI handler for the New Jersey informant. The informant, Hal Turner, was a right-wing radio host and blogger who made threats against critics and public officials while on the FBI payroll. 

FliFliFliFliFliFlip-Flops.Great.

How the 1980s paved the way for today's politicians, we hardly knew.

At about 1:10 here:

Jonah Goldberg Wants More Federalism, Doesn't Realize It's Spelled 'Representation'

In the closest thing yet to a nationally recognized columnist calling for the founders' vision of localization of the political, Jonah Goldberg here misses an opportunity to score a blow for constitutional originalism:

What if instead the solution is to disempower the national elites who think they’ve got the answers to everything?

Federalism — the process whereby you push most political questions to the lowest democratic level possible — has been ripe on the right for years now. ...

But that may be changing. In an essay for the spring issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Yale law professor Heather K. Gerken offers the case for “A New Progressive Federalism.”

Gerken’s chief concern is how to empower “minorities and dissenters.” ... [S]he makes the very compelling point that the current understanding of diversity — having minority members as tokens of inclusion — pretty much guarantees that racial minorities will always be political minorities as well. ...

A Left-Right federalist compromise would make America a happier, freer, more prosperous and interesting country. It would also dethrone those in both parties who think they know what’s best for more than 300 million Americans.

The theoretical talk is welcome, but the practical application is the rub.

That's what's missing from these discussions, and where the genius of the authors of the constitution shone brighest.

The founders long ago conceived of just such a compromise between political extremes in Article 1 of the constitution when they proposed one representative for every 30,000 of population. Today we have one for every 708,000 on average because Congress arrogated power to itself in the 1920s by limiting representation to the then-current number apportioned, or 435. If you want to know where elitism started in our politics, look there.

By all rights we should have over 10,000 representatives today, a more interesting country indeed.

 

After 10 Million Votes Republicans Still Prefer Anyone But Romney 1.5 to 1

See here at Real Clear Politics for the data:

Romney is Nearly Half Way to Needed Delegates After IL Victory

The Wall Street Journal tracks the contests and totals here:

With Malia Obama in Off-Limits-For-Everyone-Else Mexico With 25 Secret Service Agents, The Whole Family Is Milking The Presidency

And Moochelle Obama protests on Letterman she's trying to preserve South Side of Chicago values in The White House.

Uh huh.

Here's a South Side value: When you want to be safe on the South Side, bring the Blackstone Rangers.

Stories here and here. And here.

She gotta new gang now.

My Plan For Middle East Peace

• Evacuate all persons from the Holy Land
• Muslims get Nevada
• Jews get Florida
• Christians get to settle anywhere in the US
• Disney becomes the concessionaire of the Holy Land
• America gets 50 percent of the take
• Disney gets 40 percent
• Nevada and Florida split the rest
• Muslims cannot visit Florida anytime, nor the Holy Land in February, April, June, September, and November
• Jews cannot visit Nevada anytime, nor the Holy Land in January, March, May, July, August, October and December

US Postal Service Worker Links Obama To Marxist Ayers Family in Glen Ellyn, IL in 1980s

Jerome Corsi breaks down the story for WND.com here, speculating that Bill Ayers' parents were responsible for financing at least some of Barack Obama's education.

Perhaps the most interesting point of the whole story is how much damage one well-placed commie can do to a country. And I don't mean Obama, but Bill Ayers' father, who was formerly president and CEO of Com Ed, the electric utility:

"[The postman Allen] Hulton recalls that he had one conversation with Tom Ayers, who was retired as CEO and chairman of Commonwealth Edison, shortly after the Ayers family moved into their home in Glen Ellyn.

'He asked me how I liked my job, and he started into what seemed to me a Marxist viewpoint on what it is like for the working man, trying to convince me that working people like me were exploited by their employers,' Hulton remembers of the conversation.

'As an American citizen, I appreciated everything I had, and I was not at war with people who had more than I had,' [Hulton] says. 'It surprised me to hear somebody who had been president of Consolidated [sic] Edison talking in these terms.'

Hulton says he got the feeling that Tom Ayers thought he knew more about the plight of the workingman than he did."

Having lived near and worked in that area between 1989 and 1997 I can say that the postman's recollections of Glen Ellyn ring true.

What are the chances that Big Sis will give Allen Hulton an award for saying something?

The Individual Mandate: An Unprecedented Assertion of Government Power

Adam J. White for The Weekly Standard here makes the case that the Supreme Court of the United States has quite a history of ruling against sweeping innovations which have no precedent, which means ObamaCare just might not pass muster:

"[T]he [Obama] administration’s latest actions encapsulate precisely the concerns embodied in the Roberts Court’s decisions regarding Sarbanes-Oxley, Guantánamo, and preelection book banning, as well as the New Deal Court’s unanimous refusal to simply acquiesce to FDR. Unprecedented powers asserted by the government threaten to give rise to stark abuses of power​—​some foreseeable, perhaps many more unforeseeable. Faced with similarly novel assertions of government power in previous cases, the Court drew a constitutional line in the sand, out of an abundance of caution. The Court’s review of the individual mandate poses no less a challenge, and merits no less a response."

We're all in deep trouble if the individual mandate survives.

Socialists Agree: Obama's Their Man

As seen here:

STERN: You like Obama?

MACPHERSON: Yeah, I’m living in London and I’m socialist. What do you expect?


Can't wait until he confiscates her $60 million net worth.

Oh wait, he can't. Obama's only President of the United States. Elle Macpherson (Eleanor Nancy Gow) is Australian.

ABC News/WaPo Poll Finds 67 Percent Opposed to ObamaCare Mandate

As usual, people want the goodies in the plan, without the compulsion which is necessary to fund it.

Story here.

In Case You Missed It, Noted Libertarian RC Whalen Endorsed Newt Gingrich

RC Whalen's expertise with all things banking frequently is on display at ZeroHedge, where his endorsement of Newt Gingrich appeared, no doubt to the chagrin of its many liberal readers.

Here is the concluding paragraph:

"To me Newt is the only credible conservative in the presidential race for 2012, but one who brings a mixture of core American values, real world experience and a pragmatic, compassionate approach to a range of issues.  Gingrich wants to facilitate real change in America, while Romney only wants to run the welfare state better.  And Newt Gingrich is not afraid to call Barack Obama a socialist in a national presidential debate.  That is why I support Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination for the presidency."

A Marine in Missouri Will Vote For the Republican Candidate, But Gives $ Only to Newt

From the LA Times, here:

Jim Crossland, a retired Marine handing out flyers about the national debt after a Santorum speech in northern St. Louis, shrugged when asked about the candidate, the apparent local favorite. “In Pennsylvania, his nickname was ‘Tricky Ricky’ -- talks one way, votes another,” Crossland said. “But if he’s elected for our side, I’ll get behind him.”

“I’m still sending money to Newt,” he confessed. So what if it’s Romney, like a lot of people predict?

Crossland paused. “I’ll vote for him,” he said, “but I won’t send him any money.”

A Real Recovery is not Confined to Sectors, But is Ubiquitous

From Jeffrey Snider, here:

I think what is happening in oil, gasoline, electricity and energy is a microcosm of this recovery. In many ways this is not a recovery, certainly not in the sense that most people have of what a recovery is supposed to be. This is the speculators' recovery, as free money finds its way into (and then rushed out of) risky financial assets all over the world. ... 

[I]f you take the perspective of the real economy over the now long-term, what appears to be a cycling period of inflation might start to look like a single period of depression, an economy trapped in artificial financial risk, unable to awaken into a healthy long-term recovery where marginal actors freely choose to accept and welcome true risk so that any economic "success" is no longer concentrated in a few sectors.

A Nation of Renters Does Not Spend on the Nest

The Fiscal Times, here, tries to put a pretty face on the current economic situation in "Real Recovery: America's Debt is on the Decline," but the underlying facts show, as the article concludes, that there is no driver for jobs and thus nothing driving increases in real income, without which prospects for growth going forward are poor:

[A] new report from the McKinsey Global Institute says U.S. consumers are unlikely to assume their historic posture as spender of last resort for the global economy. ...

The lingering impact of the Great Recession is turning America into a “renter nation,” and that will have major implications for the rest of the economy over the next few years. ...

U.S. households have reduced their debt-to-disposable-income ratio by 15 percentage points to about 110 percent, which is a greater reduction than any of the ten largest industrial economies over the last four years. ...

The $150 billion in reduced mortgage debt – deleveraging – was more than offset by the $170 billion in new consumer credit. ...

[M]uch of the reduced mortgage debt is due to banks foreclosing on properties and writing off loans, not people paying off debts.


(image source)

Powerline Blog Says Santorum Was A Three Term Senator, Fiscal Moderate

He was a two term senator, not a three. How do you get that wrong?

But it's true Santorum lacks credibility as a fiscal hawk, and Romney is correct to go after him on that score.

The story is here.

The Inflation Quotation of the Second Millennium for the Third

"Inflation is like a banana. Once you see one brown spot, it's too late."

-- attributed to central banker Henry Wallich by Jerry Jordan of the Cleveland Federal Reserve  (source)

China's Boom is a Debt Boom, Misallocated to Real Estate

It's the same as it ever was.

This time, just like most times everywhere, cheap money in China has been massively misallocated to real estate.

Gwynne Dyer (who isn't especially alarmed about Iran) for The Japan Times, here:

People in the West want to believe that China's economy will go on growing fast because the fragile recovery in Western economies depends on it. Twenty years of 10 percent-plus annual growth have made China the engine of the world economy, even though most Chinese remain poor. But the engine is fuelled by cheap credit, and most of that cheap money, as usual, has gone into real estate.

Is there such a thing as a good commie?

Good commies would invite the rural hordes to live in all that new, mostly unoccupied, real estate.

Human nature being what it is, I wouldn't count on it. Revolution is more likely.

Obama Has Deliberately Obscured His Life-long Marxist Extremism

From Investor's Business Daily:

The videotape of Obama praising and hugging his America-bashing, Constitution-trashing law professor Derrick Bell isn't the only evidence that's been hidden from the public. A 1998 video of Obama praising the late Marxist agitator Saul "The Red" Alinsky alongside a panel of hard-core Chicago communists also exists. ...

[A] 2003 video of Obama speaking at a Chicago dinner held in honor of former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi. ... [T]he radical Khalidi — a close friend and neighbor of Obama, who held a 2000 political fundraiser in his home for him — has strongly defended the use of violence by Palestinians against Israel, while expressing clearly anti-American views. ...

[W]hy did Obama disguise the name of his radical Alinsky trainer Jerry Kellman in his memoir? And why did he also try to shield from readers the identity of his Alinsky mentor John McKnight, who wrote him a letter of recommendation to Harvard? ...

[W]hy did Obama leave out his weeks-long training at Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation in Los Angeles? This station of the cross for Alinsky acolytes is strangely missing from all 500 pages of his tediously detailed memoir. For that matter, the late Alinsky is not cited by name in either of the president's autobiographies, even though leftist activists confess this father of community organizing had a powerful influence on Obama.

Moreover, if communist Frank Marshall Davis wasn't a controversial factor in Obama's life, why did Obama also mask his identity in his first memoir? If listening, spellbound, at the feet of a known subversive isn't a red flag, why keep his real profile a secret?

Obama also couldn't find room in "Dreams From My Father" to mention the most striking thing about his father's politics. Obama Sr. was a pro-Soviet socialist, who as a government economist wrote a communist tract for Kenya in 1965. If this published paper wasn't a big deal, as Obama apologists have suggested, why is it conveniently missing from the 143-page section Obama devoted to boast about his father's career in Kenya? ...

[Obama] never mentioned Bell or the Harvard strike he led on his beloved professor's behalf in either autobiography. If he wasn't trying to fool people, why leave this seminal event out?

Even more radical — and influential — than Bell was Harvard law professor Robert Unger, who taught Obama a couple of courses, including one called "Reinventing Democracy." Like Bell, Unger called U.S. jurisprudence a sham system designed to protect the rich at the expense of the poor. But Unger also taught Obama how to dismantle it. He argued for seizing all private capital and redistributing it.

Obama kept up communications with Unger long after he graduated, but those contacts stopped in 2008. "I am a leftist, and by conviction as well as by temperament, a revolutionary," Unger explains. "Any association of mine with Barack Obama in the course of the campaign could do only harm."

Read the complete op-ed here.

The Tyrant Fears His Own: All His Life Long He Is Beset With Fear

"He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles."

-- Plato's Republic, Book IX

Feds Want You To Believe The Hutaree Guy Who Lived Here Was A Threat . . .

. . . to the Federal government of The United States.

Right, just like the kid who draws pictures of guns in grade school is a threat to the snot-nosed mouth breather sitting next to him.

"No tolerance." Same as "I'm too stupid to think. I have no ability to put things in proper perspective. 'Proportionality' might as well be Greek to me. So we go immediately to DefCon1."

An eight week federal trial for someone who can't even afford to live in a real trailer park?

Feds Try To Establish Link Between Opposition To ObamaCare And Hutaree Conspiracy

The Hutaree were arrested within days of the passing of ObamaCare and in the wake of protests over it around the country, alleged threats of violence and even isolated acts of vandalism.

To some, such as Monica Crowley and to us, it seemed the arrests were conveniently timed to quell the anger, a shot across the bow of the people that they should expect to be met by federal force if necessary.

And what is ObamaCare if not federal force? You will either buy health insurance, or pay a fine.

The Detroit Free Press has the full story here, with this interesting detail:

According to trial testimony, health care is one of the issues that fired up the Hutaree.

As defendant Joshua Stone said in one recording played in court Monday: "I look forward to us shootin' this fall ... cause if they push that health care, we're goin' in."

The Stock Market: Bernanke's Fed Invites You To Look, But You Really Shouldn't

The Many Say 'Snuck In', The Few Say 'Sneaked In', But No One Calls It Dishonest

Least of all the sneaker, indeed quite the opposite, here:

Valdez snuck into the U.S., from Mexico, as a teenager and found work picking grapes. He got amnesty during the Reagan administration. Today he owns a vineyard management company and the winery. “This is the beauty of the U.S. --if you’re a hard worker and good and honest you can do it,” he said.

His wine made it to The White House in 2010.

Voter ID Laws Are Under Attack By Obama: Fraud Is Easy In 19 States, DC And Territories

The latest example of fraud is in Vermont (story here).

There is an excellent interactive graphic map showing the status of voter ID requirements, and pending, passed and challenged legislation throughout the US and its territories at the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures, which you can use by going here:

Bank Failures Since 2008 Have Cost The FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund $83 Billion

Based on data gathered here.

The three worst months of the crisis were July 2008, August 2009, and April 2010 when the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund had to shell out $8.8 billion, $7.5 billion and $9.4 billion respectively.

Interactive Maps of US Bank Failures Since 2008

PortalSeven.com/banks/ here has outstanding bank failure data for every year and every state during the crisis, and before.

Here's an example showing the twelve failures in Michigan from 2008 to date (Georgia and Florida have had the most failures, with 77 and 60 respectively), with the majority concentrated around Detroit:

In Michigan 18 more banks remain on an unofficial list of banks with problems, based on publicly available information. The Feds do not disclose their list of banks with problems, for obvious reasons.

In April 2008 Obama Said High Gas Prices Were A Huge Problem, Bordering On Crisis

It's six minutes long, but worth listening to now because Obama was complaining then about $3.60 a gallon being nearly a crisis. Four years later we're knocking on the door of $4.00 a gallon, and probably higher, which I'm sure he'd say borders on a catastrophe if he were not in charge.

See it here, from a speech in Indianapolis on April 25, 2008:

Obama Withholds Disaster Funds From Republican Southern Illinois

Harrisburg, IL, in Saline County not only didn't get John McCain for president in 2008, now it's not going to get disaster funds from FEMA after the recent tornado flattened the joint.

Gee, I wonder why?

Lots of counties in southern Illinois, including Saline, went for Republican John McCain in 2008 (in blue).

(source)

Story here: seven dead, 100 injured, 100 homes destroyed, hundreds more damaged.

Fix it yourself.

Norway's AUF Leader Eskil Pedersen Fled Utoya Like A Coward While Breivik Shot Youths

So charges "Norway, Israel and the jews" on March 5, 2012 here:

But Eskil Pedersen is not the most solid man in the world – a few minutes after the dreadful shooting started at Utøya on July 22, he and 8 other leaders who were in charge of the safety of the many hundreds of fantastic kids who participated in the traditional summer camp, took the official AUF ferry, which easily could have picked up and saved another 41 frightened and injured kids who were hiding amid rocks and under trees to avoid being killed. This they did as owners of small boats came to the rescue, subjecting themselves to lethal danger in order to pick up kids who in their desperation were swimming across the fiord to escape bullets. Rather than help picking up the kids, they took the decision to go further out the fiord, away from land, even as kids were seen swimming in the waters.

One Year Out, Radiation in Futaba Japan 5 km from Nuke Accident Remains Dangerous

Here's a screen shot from Fukushima Diary showing recent, very high radiation readings measured at ground level and in a car in Futaba town, 5 km north and west from the melted-down reactors at Fukushima:

If you reduced a typical American's exposure to radiation in a year from all sources, including medical and flight sources, to an hourly level it would be 0.7 microsieverts per hour. The air level in the car to the left is nearly 45.0, and next to the soil 518.2, nearly 12 times worse, both far in excess of safe. Just breathing the air there for less than two years would give you more than a single lifetime's exposure.

(source)

Here's a map showing the nuke plant on the coast at the lower right and Futaba's Town Office to the northwest of it marked by the green arrow:

The Last Real American?

Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-2)

The Opposite of Transparency: Obama Regime Claims GSEs Exempt from FOIA

From an editorial on the subject here:

Judicial Watch sought those documents because the FHFA claimed in a separate lawsuit against the 17 firms that losses on securities were caused by material misrepresentations the firms made to Fannie and Freddie. Finance industry experts claim Fannie and Freddie officials were more than sufficiently knowledgeable about the mortgage industry to realize the risks involved in such securities. By putting all Fannie and Freddie documents about such transactions beyond the reach of FOIA requesters like Judicial Watch, the Obama administration is making it difficult, if not impossible, for independent evaluators to determine who bears responsibilities for the losses [$150 billion and climbing] now being covered by taxpayers.

Adam Smith: Crony Capitalism is a Powerful Force Against Freedom

From Sheldon Richman, here, quoting Adam Smith:

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [that is, 'those who live by profit'], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

Smith grew up under mercantilism and knew well of what he wrote. America grew up largely under mercantilism and its cousin, Hamiltonian-Lincolnian corporatism. In this respect advocates of the freed market should embrace Smith’s understanding of political economy: that a powerful force against freedom emanates from where they might least expect to find it.

Worst Employment Recession Since WW2: After 4 Years, Jobs Recovery Not in Sight

The unemployment report yesterday shows some job gains, but the overall rate of unemployment remains unchanged from the month before at 8.3 percent, and jobs recovered have retraced only a small portion of the territory lost.

In every other jobs recession since the Second World War jobs recovered to the starting point in every case but one within 2.7 years. Bush's relatively mild job recession took 3.9 years to fully recover.

We are 4.1 years out and job losses are still at the severe depths last reached in the recessions of 1948 and 1957, as shown here.

America once knew how to bounce back quickly.

Not anymore.